Central Ohio .NET Developers Group

* special note * - Due to the holiday season, CONDG's November meeting will occur on Friday November 14th, December's meeting will occur on Thursday December 11th.  Meetings will return to the 4th Thursday starting in January.

Sponsorship

 Food and beverages for the meeting are being sponsored by Microsoft.

Topic

New features coming in VSTS 2010 (codenamed "Rosario")

Abstract

The phrase “drive quality upstream” has been abused so badly by ALM software vendors that it has to be relegated to the platitude junk pile along with such all time favorites as “work smarter not harder,” “Think outside the box,” and “Synergistic leveraging of code reuse.”  Before we drive quality anywhere we need to give quality a seat at the table. VSTS Rosario release will do this by automatically gathering critical information about the project and code and making that data available when, where and to whom it is needed. During this discussion we will examine how Rosario impacts quality across the application lifecycle by:

• Allowing testers to provide developers with details about what the code did instead of just providing the details about what the tester did.
• Allowing development leads and architects to visualize and understand their current code (not the code they wish they had, but the code they really have) so that they can minimize the impact of changes; and
• Allowing developers to understand the impact of their changes in terms of affected tests, concurrency and bounds checking. 

The Rosario release of VSTS will bring all project stakeholders together to allow richer information to be shared across every role to make software quality accessible and achievable.

Speaker

Mark Mydland

Mark Mydland is the Principal Group Manager for the Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers product at Microsoft.  In the past 12 years, Mark has worked as a developer and consultant across a wide variety of applications and industries.  Mark first joined Microsoft in 2001 working as a member of the Natural Interactive Services Division (NISD).  During his time in that group, Mark was the development manager for a team focused on analytics for assessing the efficacy of natural language interpreters with a particular emphasis on driving authoring simplification and relevance quality for user assistance.  Based on this work, Mark filed numerous patents and coauthored a paper for the SIGIR journal.  In 2004, Mark left Microsoft to work as a Director of Development at Getty Images where he led a change in process from a traditional waterfall methodology to a scrum-based agile approach which brought the release frequency from 12-18 months down to 1 month.  Since Getty made extensive use of VSTS, it seemed a natural fit for Mark to join VSTS on his return to Microsoft in 2006.  Mark received his B.S. from West Point in 1991.  He has also held positions with USWeb/marchFirst and Andersen Consulting/Accenture. 

When

Friday, 11/14/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

About 70 people attended the meeting this month that was generously sponsored by Data Dynamics who is also one of the group's Annual Sponsors.

All of the talks were great, and definitely provided value for all who attended!  Congratulations to Alex Moore for winning the favorite talk award :-)

Sponsorship

Meeting, food and beverages are being sponsored by Data Dynamics.

Topic

This month's meeting will be Lightning Talks. There will be eight topics presented with each presentation lasting approximately 10-12 minutes - just enough to give you a taste of a variety of topics near and dear to the .NET world, all in one sitting.

The speaker schedule for the meeting is as follows:

Speaker	Topic
James Johnson	Data Dynamics
Mel Grubb	WF Rules Engine Tricks
Craig McKeachie/Tim Hibner	A lap around SiteFinity
Greg Malcolm	MONO
Kishore Patel	GIS/Mapping with .Net
Alex Moore	Parallel Extensions to the .Net Framework
Steve Horn	jQuery
Chris Treisch	The Human Side

When

Thursday, 10/23/2008, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

100 people were in attendance to watch Amanda educate the group in the ways of functional programming and F#.  Sophic was very generous in their meeting swag providing us with custom T-Shirts and OSU football tickets!

October's meeting will be lightning talks, if you are interested in submitting a talk please contact us  your topic/contact information.

As promised here is a rundown of upcoming events:

• ArcReady / MSDN Event - October 2nd (9-11:30am, 1-4pm) - Microsoft Offices (Polaris)
• MOCSDUG - Biztalk Rules Engine - October 2nd (6-8pm) - Microsoft Offices (Polaris)
• Ann Arbor Day of .Net - October 18th (9am - 4:30pm) - Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, MI
• Microsoft PDC - October 27-30 - Los Angeles, CA
• .Net University - November 8th (8am - 5pm) - Microsoft Offices (Polaris)

Sponsorship

 Food and beverages for the meeting are being sponsored by one of the group's annual sponsors the Sophic Group

Topic

F# in a Nutshell

Abstract

Functional programming is making such a huge splash in the software world with concurrency becoming more important than ever! Microsoft is taking this very seriously by adding a new first class language to the next version of Visual Studio. F# is Microsoft's fusion language that has a major functional focus in addition to the object oriented capabilities. This discussion will focus on what functional programming is, and how it can change the way you think about solving complex business problems. We'll learn about functional constructs, and design as well as what makes this language so important. You'll also walk away knowing how to get started with F# and a basic understanding of the syntax.

Speaker

Amanda Laucher 

Amanda Laucher is a consultant with the The Sophic Group. She has been architecting and developing systems for 6 years and resides in the Columbus, OH area. When she isn't working or speaking at code conferences, she's busy writing F# in a Nutshell and promoting women in science. 

When

Thursday, 09/25/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

80 people were in attendance for this meeting that put a twist on the ordinary.  The meeting was performed in two parts and demonstrated technologies that ranged from C++ to webservices to a very cool WPF dashboard application.  Many thanks to Exceptional Innovation|LifeWare for presenting as well as inviting our members as guests to their facilities for some hands-on exposure to these great technologies!

Sponsorship

 Food and beverages for the meeting are being sponsored by Exeptional Inovation-Life|ware .

Topic

Device Profile for Web Services (DPWS)

Abstract

Technology’s pervasiveness has been growing year by year and it is now common to find intelligent capabilities in almost any household devices such as coffee makers and lights. In order for these new and intelligent networked devices to communicate a protocol called Device Profile for Web Services (DPWS) was developed as an industry standard by Microsoft, IBM, Canon and other industry heavyweights. DPWS is an implementation of several WS-* standards that are used in combination to create a powerful communication method for discovering and controlling networked devices. We’ll cover the different facets of DPWS and show a few live demos that demonstrate turning a light on.

Join us afterwards at Exceptional Innovation’s headquarters about 4 minutes away from the Microsoft building at 480 Olde Worthington Rd, Westerville, OH. Come and play with the software in our in-house smart home. Food and beverages will be provided.

Speakers

Geoffrey Carr

Geoffrey Carr is a Development Manager at Exceptional Innovation located in Westerville, Ohio, managing the team responsible for Life|ware’s Visual Project application. He holds a M.S. in Computer Engineering from The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio where he played for TBDBITL for 3 years.

Dr. Michael Carr
Dr. Michael Carr has 15 years of experience managing design of hardware and software solutions for database, digital video, home automation, communication, radar, and scientific simulation industries. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of Michigan and has published book chapters in antenna theory and digital communication along with 21 other peer-reviewed research papers. He currently functions as Director of Software Development at Exceptional Innovation, Westerville, Ohio. Dr. Carr is an amateur radio operator (N8YDC), an Eagle Scout, and a private pilot.

When

Thursday, 8/28/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

Important Note:

The first part of the meeting will be at the Microsoft Office as usual (light snacks will be provided).  The presentation at the office will last approximately 1 hour.  The second part of the meeting will be located at Exceptional Innovation located in Westerville OH (480 Olde Worthington Rd, Westerville, OH) .  This is where the food and beverages will be provided.

About 80 members turned out for July's meeting on Agile Development.  The presentation was full of real world experience and pokes fun at many of us by calling out scenarios that many developers have to deal with on a day-to-day-basis.  This presentation was recorded and we are currently evaluating it's quality and preparing it for the web.  As soon as we have this ready we will post an update to this blog.  Thanks again for Dave Donaldson for coming out and presenting, and to Telligent for sponsoring the meeting!

Sponsorship

 Food and beverages for the meeting are being sponsored by Telligent

Topic

Turning the Ship: Getting a Traditional Organization to Adopt Agile Practices

Abstract

The last few years have seen a major upswing in the adoption of agile practices, such as TDD and Continuous Integration, but how does an organization make the shift from traditional methodologies into agile thinking? How do you gain buy-in and traction that agile processes are something you should do? How do you get people to understand the value? This session will talk about how to do just that by focusing on real experiences from real projects that turned the tide for their respective organizations. We'll cover a variety of topics, such as people, process, tools, and technologies, so if you are in a situation ripe for change, you must attend this highly interactive session.

Speaker

Dave Donaldson

Dave Donaldson is a developer lead for Telligent, where he spends his time helping build Community Server, the leading social networking platform for creating online communities. Dave specializes in a practical approach to software development by using agile techniques and strives to make things better every day. When not busy improving Community Server, Dave is a Microsoft MVP and is a frequent speaker at regional conferences and user groups. He also created and maintains CodeKeep, a web site and series of Visual Studio add-ins for managing code snippets. You can keep up with Dave on his blog at http://www.arcware.net.

When

Thursday, 7/24/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

/** Update**/

This meeting will also be streamed using LiveMeeting, click here to access the meeting. 

• Start the Office Live Meeting client, and then in the Voice & Video pane, click Join Conference.  The conferencing service will call you at the number you specify. (Recommended)
• Dial the conferencing service directly, and enter the participant code shown below:
  Toll-free:              +1-8665006738
  Toll:           +1-2034808000
  Participant Code:               8275883

/******************/

Over 60 people attended the meeting this month. Jeremy Sublett provided members with a plethora of information related to surfacing data in SharePoint.  We appreciate the time he took to travel to bring this information to us, all the way from Louisville Kentucky. 

This month we announced a new annual sponsor for the group, Data Dynamics has reached out to sponsor and support CONDG, our group is very grateful for this support.  A very big thank you also goes out to Foresight Corporation for sponsoring the pizza and soft drinks this month. 

The board will also like to thank the people who showed interest in attending a mirror site in the Columbus area for the Ann Arbor Give Camp .  You will be hearing more details on this from us soon!  It's not too late to get involved, feel free to register on the Give Camp site as a remote volunteer, but also send an email through the CONDG contact form to let us know you want to get together with the Columbus chapter!

See you next month on July 24th!

Sponsorship

This meeting is being sponsored by the Foresight Corporation. Food and Beverages will be provided !

Topic

Accessing Data with Sharepoint

Abstract

In this talk we’ll look at different mechanisms for surfacing data inside SharePoint.  We’ll cover the following topics: using typical ASP.NET techniques inside SharePoint, using SharePoint designer to render list data and using BDC (Business Data Catalog) for accessing external data.

Speaker

Jeremy Sublett

Jeremy Sublett is a software architect and senior partner with Composable Systems, LLC, specializing in SharePoint-based business solutions.  Prior to becoming a SharePoint MVP, Jeremy was focused on using the latest Microsoft technology to implement service-oriented applications.  Jeremy has worked professionally with Microsoft development technology since 1994 and is a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) for .NET as well as a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT).  Jeremy contributes regularly to the Microsoft development community by speaking on topics such as ASP.NET, WCF and SharePoint 2007.  Recently, Jeremy was asked by Microsoft to be one of three people nation-wide to teach SharePoint development for Microsoft partners.

When

Thursday, 6/26/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

Jeff Hunsaker provided us with a sneak peek at what Entity Framework will bring us.  He also did a great job of showing other ORM products available.  You can contact Jeff Hunsaker through his blog.

Overall we had 73 people in attendance, a big thank you goes out to Cardinal Solutions for providing the food and drink! 

Looking forward to seeing you all on June 26th!

Also, there was a USB flash drive left at the meeting. If you can identify it's size/color/make, it's yours!  Contact us to claim it.

Sponsorship

This meeting is being sponsored by Cardinal Solutions. Food and Beverages will be provided !

Topic

Decomposing the ADO.NET Entity Framework

Abstract

As Microsoft continues to evolve the data access stack, the outlook continues to improve for developers. This presentation explores Microsoft's latest offering: ADO.NET Entity Framework. We'll cover what the Entity Framework promises and what it delivers v1.0 as well as how it compares with other data access frameworks. Learn how you can transpose the physical database model into a more developer-friendly, application-centric model.

Speaker

Jeff Hunsaker

Jeff is a managing consultant and team lead in the Microsoft and ALM practices for Cardinal Solutions Group in Columbus. Working for a variety of consultancies and firms for the past dozen years, he typically plays the architect or lead developer role (yes, he still codes). Jeff gets excited about efficient, resourceful, and elegant technology solutions, agile development techniques, and providing value for clients quickly and regularly. He's constantly looking for faster and more -able: (scalable, maintain, reliable, secure, etc.) ways of delivering software and loves learning new things. In his spare time, Jeff enjoys his family (two boys, wife Lisa), reading, and writing.

When

Thursday, 5/22/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus

We had another amazing meeting!  93 people showed up to learn the tools and techniques used to debug production applications.  A thank you goes out to our meeting sponsor TDCI , they provided us with swag, food and beverages. 

As promised, the link to Scott's blog is here .

Thank you all, and see you next month on May 22nd !

Sponsorship

This meeting is being sponsored by TDCI . Food and Beverages will be provided !

Topic

Production Debugging: Tools & Techniques for when things go *really* wrong

Abstract

This session explores tools and techniques to resolve software issues occurring in production environments in the most efficient and least disruptive fashion. We will cover the basics of using tools such as WinDBG, SOS and ADPLUS to explore some common types of application issues from identifying the problem to the ultimate resolution.

Speakers

Scott Walker

Scott Walker is a Team Lead with TDCI Inc. Scott is currently leading two teams at TDCI. One responsible for the development of the BuyDesign Channel Sales quoting solution, and the other responsible for third level customer support as well as research activities. He has been working with .NET since the first release candidate version and has been involved in development of enterprise level web and desktop applications for the law enforcement, banking, and manufacturing industries. He is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD.NET).

Bryan DeMuth

Bryan is a physicist who makes his living as a Senior Software Engineer at TDCI where he develops .NET web applications and is one of two resident DBAs.   He is a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCAD.NET, MCDBA) and a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (SQL 2005).

When

Thursday, 4/24/2008, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Where

Microsoft Office - Columbus